An anonymous group calling themselves "Phantom Squad" have threatened to take down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live next Friday on Christmas Day.
The threats were issued from a twitter account that has been active since November 27th. In that time the "Phantom Squad" has claimed to have brought down the PlayStation Network several times; requesting retweets in order to reinstate service.
Threats on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live have only recently gained some traction due to the Phantom Squad twitter tying these threats to the issue of cyber security.
https://twitter.com/PhantomSqaud/status/677245840512016384https://twitter.com/PhantomSqaud/status/677246314950746112
Over the last month the "Phantom Squad" has attempted to tie their activities to Anonymous, retweeting this from @YourAnonNews and claiming "alliance" with other Anonymous branded accounts.
https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/677251868385484802 The "Phantom Squad" also seems to have a fixation on Treyarch and Call of Duty Black Ops, claiming the Black Ops servers as targets several times.
https://twitter.com/PhantomSqaud/status/673203563217027072https://twitter.com/PhantomSqaud/status/675759974144872453
The "Phantom Squad" twitter account has bragged of taking down several online entities. They claim to have taken down Instagram, though there are no reports of outages. The group also claims to have been behind an outage on Reddit Tuesday December the 15th. Reddit has not acknowledged any hacking taking place Tuesday, stating that the outage was due to a database issue, requiring a reset.
https://twitter.com/PhantomSqaud/status/676631511349592064 Users on twitter have been consistently doubtful of the "Phantom Squad" hacks. Several users shared pictures of Black Ops 3 running fine after the group claims to have taken it down. The Phantom Squad twitter has posted many times asserting their legitimacy. They tweeted "We are a legit hacking group. What you believe is what you believe." and "We will keep hitting servers if you don't believe us."
While there is no way to substantiate any of these threats or past actions, those of you who want to play games on Christmas might want to download any updates the night before.
Quick Take
To me this looks more like the actions of a wannabe script kiddie than a legitimately "dangerous" hacker collective. The constant "take us seriously" tweets and attempts to tie themselves to Anonymous, the internet Boogeyman only reinforce that. That said, the PSN has shown an almost unbelievable fragility. So if you're at all worried, just download your updates early and get your fill of multiplayer before any cataclysmic hacks occur.
